


Unconditional

by Michevalier



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Akiema, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Sickfic, Slice of Life, VRAINS Hell Exchange, hireshipping, this is one hella of cutesy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-01 13:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15144158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michevalier/pseuds/Michevalier
Summary: Being wrapped in unconditional love was something Ema wasn't used to, so she wasn't certain how should she behave under Zaizen Akira's care.





	Unconditional

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheDarkFlygon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/gifts).



> I hope you like it!! Hireshipping is the sweetest thing and definitely deserves more love! :3

She sneezed rather loud, but, before doing the most natural thing with a tissue in her hand, nitpickingly glared at the man sitting next to her bed.

"Don't worry, go ahead," he chuckled and turned his face away. "Here, I'm not looking."

Ema made a small grimace which could have rather been described as cute over unsightly, but still she wasn't very much appealed over the prospect of doing something so unaesthetical, so disgraceful as... but her frail, not exactly healthy body demanded her to blow her nose as loudly as she could, so she was forced to comply and do the nasty stuff.

"I've made some miso soup... there you go," a tray with a boul filled to the brim with the said dish was carefully put in front of her.

" _You_  made it?" Ema raised an eyebrow and cooed. "If this is really _your_   cooking then I'm impressed, Akira."

The man blushed so radiantly that her suspisions were immediately confirmed and she couldn't help giggling. She seriously wondered what more miracles should she have been expecting from Zaizen Akira aside from him suddenly suggesting for her to stay at his home during her sickness.

"Thank you, of course," she sighed and looked up at the ceiling, pretending she was totally more interested in observing those pretty moon beams dancing all over it while mixing with dim artificial light rather than Akira's genuinely concerned look. "But I would have managed myself perfectly fine. I'm not a toddler after all."

"You're living in your apartment all alone," Akira reached his hand, wordlessly asking for a thermometre under her armpit, and, as soon as he got it, furrowed his brows. "Your body temperature is higher than it should normally be."

"It's just a common cold," Ema rolled back her eyes. "Nothing lethal and you're overreacting."

"Even if I am," he put away the thing, "it's not like I was going to leave you alone anyway. It's always better to have someone by your side when you're not in good health."

Ema huffed quietly and looked towards the window.

Dozens, hundreds, if not thousands, of lights were illuminating Den City inhabitats' dwellings. Most of those dwellings had at least a small group, a couple of people not indifferent towards one another. Perhaps, her way of thinking was quite ego-centric and wrong to its very foundation, but most of her lifetime Ema Bessho spent wondering whether there was someone else in this lively city as lonely as she was?

" _Nah, of course not,_ " she would always end up thinking.

There was no one more lonesome than her in Den City. 

But it's not like she ever complained: she was used to it anyway.

If there was one thing Ema got from her mother who wished her own daughter was never born is that she was a "pretty-faced monster" and no one would ever love her... and yet this man sitting by her bedside turned her worldview upside down as he took this "monster" akin to a stray cat and wholeheartedly attempted to nurse it.

"I..." she muttered absent-mindedly, not willing to let weird thoughts flood her mind. "I feel sorry for Aoi-chan." 

"Why is that?" Akira asked, taking away the bowl after Ema emptied it and tucking her in soft warm blanket.

"How?" she hid her huge cunning smile under the blanket, only her lovely pink eyes were twinkling with laughs like precious gems. "Have you seen the poor girl's face when she saw me here literally out of the blue?" 

"Hmm... you're right," Akira scratched his reddened cheek. "That was somewhat awkward, I agree."

"But of course!" this time Ema laughed aloud and "dived" under the blanket, leaving only her messy pink locks scattered all over the pillow. "What else do you think she could have thought, having caught some woman in her brother's bed? Variant number one: you're some scummy punk who decided to get me laid and nothing more. Variant number two: you're a well-brought-up man and, after getting me laid, you're going to marry me. And since you belong more to the latter category..."

" _Unlike my biological father..._ " her heart squeezed painfully at the thought. 

"There's not even anything about "getting laid", you're overthinking," Akira sighed heavily. "I was just worried about you." 

Akira remained silent for a moment and, taking a quick look on his hands that curled into fists without his conscious command, took a deep breath and added.

"There has to be some things in this world, intentions that do not hold ulterior motives."

All of a sudden a blindingly bright image flashed from the depths of his memory: a dazzingly beautiful woman who happened to be his biological mother, the woman who used to languish in her loveless marriage due to purely convenient reasons and payed any attention to her son at all, well, because she gave birth to him, but more because he was her husband's heir first and foremost. Thus, her "love" for her own child was as warm as a moonbeam, a cube of ice.

"There must be something... unconditional," Akira said calmly despite a huge imaginary cotton ball clogging his throat.

Some tiny ache resonated within Ema's chest when she had finally decided to drop her childish act and show up from under the blanket... but all she encountered was Akira smiling down at her warmly all over again.

"Maybe there is something else you would like?" he asked, not even trying to hide kindness in his pink eyes.

"Well..." taken aback for a brief moment, Ema set up in bed and, having tucked a strand behind her ear, smiled as she came up with an idea. "Comb my hair? I kinda hate when it becomes this tangled."

Akira listened and complied without any objections, grabbing the comb from the nightstand.

"Do you want me to braid your hair, maybe?" he smiled, sitting on the bed next to her.

"Huh?!" bug-eyed, Ema stared at him over her shoulder. "You're not only a capable cook but a hair-dresser too?!"

"Something like that," Akira held her shoulders and made her back face him instead, his fingers began untangling her locks. "Back when I was a kid I used to imagine that I would have a daughter in the future, plus when Aoi's hair was long I would sometimes do this too."

"How cute. You know, I always spend at least fifteen minutes every morning managing my hair," Ema chuckled, feeling a slight aftertaste of bitterness on the very tip of her tongue when Akira said:

"Your hair is very lovely, Ema."

She snorted snobbishly and straightened up.

Sure thing it was. She could never forget the only time the woman who gave birth to her attempted to comb her young daughter's hair, but then preffered to have it permanently cut in "boyish style". So it was only natural that when older Ema had finally escaped from her home... no, the place stenched with poverty and squalor where she had the unfortune to be born, she firmly decided to keep her hair as long and as fabulous as it was now. Her silky pink locks waving in the wind... they became a symbol of her freedom and wildness in some way.

And letting Akira manipulate it as he gently ran the comb between those locks and then have them elaborately twisted into a simple and yet such a pretty braid... Seriously, "what the hell?" was the only proper question the prideful cyber treasure huntress could manage in her uncharacteristically chaotic thoughts.

"I'm... jealous, to be honest," she muttered, words flew out of her mouth before she realized it. 

"Hm?" Akira blinked, tying her hair with a small purple ribbon he accidentally found in one of the nightstand's drawers.

"I-I mean," Ema blushed, cursing herself for her sudden weakness, "Aoi-chan... She's so lucky to have such a caring and reliable man in her life."

"I hope you're right," he sighed heavily and put the braid over her shoulder. "But I do realize I'm not the best brother in the world. I spend more time working than simply being by her side. She must be so lonely, but I..."

"Even though you two are not related by blood," Ema said in a strangely disembodied and cold voice, "you love your sister more than anything in your life and you'll choose her happiness over yours, of course. If that is not unconditional love... I don't know what it is then."

"You're exaggerating again," Akira firmly shook his head.

"No, it's you being too humble and modest," the woman giggled and looked at him softly. "But you know, those traits of yours are actually admirable. I envy your future wi..."

Realization of what she was about to say as well as Akira's curious look struck her harder than a boulder to the back of her head.

"I-I meant to say," her heart began a sudden puppy race and she hurried to look away, feeling her cheeks getting hotter, "why, look how late it is! Almost midnight! And you have work in the morning!"

"Ah, it's fine," but the man did yawn. "I have a nice coffee machine in my office anyway."

"No-no-no!" Ema furiously shook her ago and pushed him in his back. "You've already stayed up late because you had to tend to me... I'm not abusing your kindness anymore!"

"Ema?" Akira was genuinely shocked at her emotional outburst.. her eyes almost glimmering with moist.

"Just... go, rest!" she hid under her blanket at once, desperate not to give her feelings away any worse.

The man sighed heavily and walked towards the door, but then stopped at the threshold when Ema's quiet muffled voiced called out to him from inside of the "cocoon" she hid in.

"Fine. For any your next request I'm giving you twenty... no, thirty percent discount."

"Wow," Akira's eyes widened. "What did I even do to deserve such a mercy?"

"Just..." came a heavy sigh in response. "Good night already."

Awkward silence hovered in the air for a moment before Akira chuckled quietly, and even within her "shelter" Ema could feel his benevolence and warmth crawling under her skin, making her heart beat faster.

"Well, thank you very much. And sweet dreams to you too."

The sound of the door shutting informed Ema about Akira's current absense in his own bedroom and the steps in corridor let her know that once again he headed into the living room to sleep on a coach.

Ema Bessho who grew up in the poorest, dirtiest district of Den City bit her lips and curled up under the blanket that costed as much as an average quality car.

" _I_ don't deserve this, really..." she whispered into the darkness as first streams ran down her cheeks.

Truly unconditional love of Zaizen Akira ignited a pure sunshine deep within the coldest parts of her lonesome heart... and yet it burned her worse than hellfire.

"But I'll do anything to pay you back," she made a vow before falling asleep.

And the rabid pace of her own heart was no longer a hindrance — it turned into the sweetest, the most soothing lullaby in the world instead.


End file.
